


Long May She Reign

by inkstainedwretch



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Canon-Typical Drug Use, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, canon-typical descriptions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkstainedwretch/pseuds/inkstainedwretch
Summary: Dani moves from one life into another, one delirious step at a time.
Relationships: Dani Ardor/Pelle (Midsommar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52





	Long May She Reign

**Author's Note:**

> There is literally dust on my computer, that’s how long it’s been since I wrote something. I would like to thank the Midsommar fandom for existing in spite of every whiny post currently polluting the tag.

She’s on her first date with Christian, in the passengers seat of his car driving to his place. It’s a little unexpected – she’d thought he was just going to drive her home, but then he’d given her this “I mean, unless you wanted to come back to mine”, and something like excitement had twisted in her gut.

They hadn’t been ‘set up’, exactly, but her friend Jess looking at her with a grin, the nudge on her shoulder and muttered “girl, go for it!” had given her the courage to reply to the text he’d sent. Jess had given him her number, in the first place, after he’d spent the last semester of sophomore year looking at her across the lecture hall during English lit.

He’s cute. Really cute, actually. Dani’s hands twist at the hem of her skirt, looking at his profile shadowed by the street lights outside, wondering what made him go for a button-nosed mouse of a thing like her.

The watery tang of tomato won’t leave her mouth. She was hungrier than the caprese salad had been able to satisfy, but the way his eyebrows had quirked when she’d wondered aloud about the manicotti, the mumbled “that’s kind of a big plate, I dunno if I’m that hungry” had…changed her mind. Her stomach rumbles, and she hopes he can’t hear it.

Up ahead, traffic slows to a crawl. Christian mutters something like “son of a bitch” under his breath, and they sit in the faint haze of the playlist going through his aux cable as three lanes become two, and then one. She should say something, but what? They've barely talked since they left the restaurant. They're still getting to know each other. It'll get easier with time, no need to force it.

“Oh my god,” she finally says, as she sees the blaze of orange up ahead turn into the shape of a car.

She’d thought it only happened in movies until now, the way the whole inside of the little range rover is consumed in flames. They stretch up and up, maybe three feet high above the roof, licking at the shattered edges of the windows and sending thick smoke up into the night. Christian says something she doesn’t hear, and she sits transfixed as he yells at the other drivers all trying to shove themselves into the left lane.

There are other cars, maybe, shards of headlight plastic and strips of metal scattered across the road, but then it’s all hidden behind the gargantuan lightshow of fire trucks, hoses blasting at the poor thing trying to contain the flames. Through the stale cologne of the air freshener stuck to the vent, Dani smells smoke. Burning rubber, melted plastic, the slick smell of singed hair like her mom’s curling iron, and then something…sweet.

Roast pork tenderloin left in the oven for too long, her mom setting off the smoke alarm because she forgot to set the timer-

She realizes what she’s smelling, and she has to put both hands over her mouth. Her stomach squeezes, her eyes water, and even though they’re past it now, zooming away from the scene, it lingers. It clings to the inside of her nose and mouth, and the idea, the idea her imagination supplies for what it might have looked like behind that solid curtain of fire makes her want to retch.

“Jesus…” Christian shakes himself a little.

It’s another minute of quiet before Dani remembers to inhale. One deep breath, and then another. She needs to go home.

They pass her street, they pass two more stoplights, and the smell isn’t stuck in her nose anymore. She thinks maybe she can pull herself together, not ruin the whole evening, but it won’t leave her head.

“Hey,” she finally whispers. “Hey, I think I should go home.”

She watches his face pinch for a second before he looks at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I mean,” she shakes her head. “I dunno, I don’t think that salad likes me.”

That sentence makes no sense. She shuts her mouth before she says something else equally ridiculous. She can’t look at him. He’s never gonna call her again.

“…sure,” he mutters, and then pulls a U-turn without another word.

He leans over and kisses her, once they’re parked outside her house. It’s nice. She tries to think about that, after she’s showered off and washed the makeup from her face. It was nice.

\--

Pelle’s eyes are blue. They’re like frost, like the sky in winter, they should be cold, but everything about him is so warm. The hand resting on her back. The hand resting gently on her own. It’s stiflingly hot, the open space of the youth house turned suffocating by his proximity, and Dani can’t remember the last time her throat wasn’t sore from crying.

It’s like he’s cracked her open. _Do you feel held by him,_ what kind of question was that? Why does she feel so useless all of a sudden, like it’s such an obvious question, like it’s clear as day to him that no, no, she doesn’t feel held at all, he doesn’t feel like home, he doesn’t feel like anything? Why is she shaking again? Why can’t she get past this?

“I…” she begins, shakes her head, looks away from him. Her face twists up, eyes stinging, she wants to grab her throat to keep quiet but she can’t, not in front of him. God, this isn’t what Pelle came here to do, to sit and watch her cry over something that happened months ago.

She hears him sigh softly, and in the corner of her eye she sees him bow his head a little. When she hears him sniff, she snaps her head to look at him. His eyes are red and watering.

“Pelle, what?” she jumps a little, leans in and looks at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re in pain,” he says.

“No!” she says reflexively, puts a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. “No, I’ll be okay. I’m just confused, I don’t know why…I didn’t mean to…”

Her excuses fade to silence as he squeezes her hand. He’s smiling, but he looks so sad.

“I’m sorry, I should explain,” he looks a little embarrassed. “This…is what we do, in my family. We share our pain, and our joy, and our…laughter, and everything. So no one is alone. This is…I just didn’t want you to feel alone. That is why I wanted you to come here.”

The whole world tilts on its axis. Dani sways where she sits. She hears the words he doesn’t say, and she’s disgusted at herself. She looks that needy? She looks that…damaged?

“You don’t have to do that,” she shakes her head, biting her lip, now more upset with herself than him.

He pauses, blinks a couple of times. He leans in just a little closer to speak, barely a whisper.

“…I want to, Dani,” she can feel his breath move the air between them. “I do.”

She could kiss him. Easily. Happily. She could just fall onto him and cry, and cry, and maybe this time she would find the bottom of that endless well of tears. And oh god, she _wants_ to, but she can’t. She can’t be that person, she can’t betray Christian like that, but more than anything she cannot wish the burden of herself onto someone she actually cares about.

“I can’t,” she flinches back. “I can’t, Pelle, I…”

She buries her face in her hands. _I can’t do that. I can’t tangle you up in the giant mess of issues I’ve turned into. I can’t believe I’ve been letting Christian push me to the side over and over when you’re right here, you’ve been right here this whole time. I can’t believe how stupid I am. I can’t let you make the mistake of getting close to me._

One deep breath, and then another, and her hand fumbles on the bed between them.

“Where’s that…” she coughs. “Maybe that’s a good idea, after all.”

Pelle hands her the little bundle of herbs without another word. She brings it to her nose and inhales. Lavender, something minty, and the warm linen smell that stays behind when Pelle leaves a room. It works. Her breath leaves her in a rush.

“Thanks,” she sighs. “I’m…I think I should take a walk, or something.”

“Take it with you,” he nods towards the sachet.

She does, stumbling out of the youth house and letting the sun blind her for a moment as she tries to steady herself. Conversations she can’t have right now spin through her head. She wonders how long she should wait, once they’re back in the states, to say goodbye. But no, how selfish would that be? Relationships are built on compromise.

She breathes in lavender and Pelle, and wishes she were braver.

\--

The world is a blur of white cloth and greenery. Sweat and sun-warm hands covering her, lips on her cheek, Terri walking stone-faced past her while furious pinks and oranges crowd her vision from above. They’re holding her up, moving her across the grass, her head swimming with drugs and dehydration. Nothing makes sense, anymore. They all look so happy, but she can hardly feel anything, at all.

It’s July, why are they calling her May Queen? Why do they look so excited? All she did was dance. All she’s ever done, it seems, her whole life, just one long and exhausting dance. Where are they going now? Where did her mom and dad go? She wants to find them again.

She almost tries to turn back and go after them, but there are so many hands moving her forward, bodies all pressed up against her, faces that shift and stretch under crowns of breathing flowers. She doesn’t recognize any of them, now.

Then, out from behind one of them, she sees Pelle, rushing up to her, breathless with excitement. He looks so happy, _oh my god, Dani, May Queen!_ , and she laughs, beaming up at him, his hands warm on her cheeks, and then it’s not just a kiss, it’s a promise. It’s the whole world wound up into _yes, yes,_ is this what happiness is like? She forgot, somewhere down the line, how it feels to kiss someone because you want to.

When he draws back, he’s still smiling, he’s like the sun in the sky. Dani just stares at him. _What did she just do?_ It was too good, it felt too good to be right. She thinks of Christian, sitting on the grass looking downcast while she danced, and wonders if he saw that. Where _is_ he? Why wasn’t that him, why hasn’t he been anywhere in this crowd of faces, when even her mom and dad showed up to celebrate?

She wobbles on the platform when they lift her up, seeing Terri’s eyes between the branches of the trees. She can still taste the aqua vitae from Pelle’s lips.

\--

It is so hot, underneath all of the flowers, underneath the thick fabric of the cape beneath them. The crown, with its towering horns of flowers jutting up into the air, weighs on her head. It makes her stumble, coughing through smoke, her throat and lungs all burning, her hair being pulled unmercifully by the metal it’s been twisted around. Under it all, past the riotous sweetness of the flowers and the campfire-heat of wood smoke, the smell of roasting flesh slips its way past everything and invades Dani’s nose.

It’s like completing a circle. She swears the inside of the cape feels like the worn car seats from four years ago. It feels so real, so final, the smell of death in her lungs telling her it’s over at last. She turns to look, her vision warped by exhaustion, and as the frame of the temple collapses, it just…leaves her. All the guilt, all the sorrow and loss, it’s just gone. The ritual worked.

Her cheeks ache a little, and she realizes she’s smiling. Firecracker strings of joy start bursting in her head. She stands still, barely even hearing the wailing behind her, and gradually she sinks down to her knees. Flowers bunch up around her in a great pile. She sways under the weight of the crown, but stays upright by some miracle. When was the last time she felt so light?

Something pulls on the mountain of petals, and she turns to see a woman whose name she can’t remember. Her head is covered by a white kerchief, and her face is crumpled in grief. Dani remembers her, remembers watching from her distant throne as everyone said goodbye to Ingemar and Ulf, watching her walk away in tears. Ulf’s wife, Siv had told her without her even having to ask. Inga. That’s her name. Oh, she lost so much, today.

She clings to Dani, looking up at her with red, angry eyes, choking on sobs the way Dani did in some other life while Christian sat still as stone. She looks up at Dani almost beseechingly, and Dani wants to hug her, wants to hold onto her and return the gift they gave her on the floor of the youth house, but she can’t. She can feel something shift, though, the calm and elation flowing from her, and she watches the leaves and flowers all reach for Inga’s hands, like they’re part of her body now.

Dani laughs, even though that can’t be the right thing to do, but it feels so effortless. But then, she watches Inga breathe, slow and heavy the way Dani is breathing, until one breath at a time, her face softens. She stops crying. After a moment, she’s smiling, too.

Someone else comes to kneel beside Inga, and this girl Dani doesn’t know, but she wipes her eyes on a puffy white sleeve and then wraps an arm around Inga’s back. Then comes Father Odd, on her other side, and at least two more people behind her, and even Maja settles down in the grass, leaning down to rest her head on the cushion of reaching, beckoning blooms. Behind her, Dani knows this one, Torbjorn – the one whose flesh she could be smelling now, who would have given his life with pride if Dani had asked him to.

She laughs again, because it was so easy. It made so much sense, when she was still so bound up in hurt, looking at Christian sitting lopsided and silent in front of her. Here was someone neither of them knew, ready to lay down his life. Here was the man she’d been dragged around by for far too long, finally unable to talk over her and convince her it had all been her fault. Here was the man she’d given her life, her body, her love, her pain, and for what? What had he ever given her? What had he ever given anyone?

No. All he ever did was take. He has no place here, where everything is best when shared. So, it was easy to spit his name into the air and watch as Pelle’s whole face lit up.

Pelle walks into view now, kneels down in front of her, and the ferns of his crown entwine with the flowers at the edge of her vision. He leans in close, and they share the same breath for a glorious moment, and she rips at the closure of the cape until a hand pokes through. She grabs hold of his arm, and he wraps himself around her until they are a tangle of leaves and hair, his wreath pushing at the base of her crown while she buries her face in his shoulder.

The crying has stopped. She feels her crown start to fall, and someone catches it. She looks up to see Siv holding onto the tines, radiant with joy. Past her, everyone has gathered around, holding onto one another, breathing in unison, so they are all a great swell of life together on the ground. Their grief is gone, replaced by the current of blissful nothing that flows from Dani like a river.

“Our beloved queen,” Siv speaks with such pride. “How you have blessed us all today.”


End file.
